Highlander Ficlets
by MarbleGlove
Summary: This is a collection of short unrelated Highlander ficlets. Some of them are straight up Highlander, others are crossover.
1. Chapter 1: The Answer is Yes

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, DuncanMethos, the answer is _yes. oh yes._

(The Duncan/Methos aspect kind of fell by the wayside, not that it's incompatible with this, it's just not really addressed.)_  
><em>

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><p><strong>The Answer is Yes<strong>

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><p>The answer is yes. <em>Oh yes.<em>

Methos is so old that the questions don't matter anymore. He's so old that his memory doesn't stretch back far enough to a time when they _ever_ mattered.

Is he a killer? Is he a healer?

Sometimes the answers are sequential: He was a killer for this time period (yes, oh yes), he was a healer for that time period (yes, oh yes)

Is he a sinner? Is he a saint?

Other times, the answers are a matter of perspective: He sinned according to the Romans (yes, oh yes), he was a saint according to the Muslims (yes, oh yes).

Is he a defender? Is he an attacker?

Sometimes it shows him how confusing battles really are: He has preemptively attacked his enemies to defense his people (yes, oh yes) and he has lured his enemies into ambushes (yes, oh yes.)

Does the world change? Does the world stay the same?

Is it true? Is it false?

Questions about history, about philosophy, about people, don't come in easy yes/no dichotomies. They're always open-ended. And yet, so many people have asked Methos for a simple answer. Duncan is merely one of a thousand who have asked for a simple answer.

What is the meaning of The Game?

What is the meaning of Life?

The answer is yes.

Methos loves life. He has gone everywhere, seen everything, been everyone. When people ask him a question, the answer is yes, oh yes. When the world itself asks him a question, the answer is yes, oh yes.

Has he been...?

Has he done...?

Does he want...?

Oh yes.

Always and forever, _yes_.


	2. Chapter 2: xover with His Dark Materials

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander or His Dark Materials, more's the pity, I'm just playing around with them both.

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, his daemon is a deinonychus (ie, a type of dinosaur. You can look it up on wikipedia). Around the birth of Christianity, though, (s)he realized that (s)he could change shapes again, which comes in very handy whenever Methos changes personas<p>

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><p>Everything was different<p>

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><p>Some immortals mocked Duncan because he had a domesticated animal as a daemon, but Duncan thought that there was no smarter, stronger, or more noble creature than a rough Scottish collie. There weren't any real patterns to what type of daemons Immortals had, but most of the ones who survived for long had relatively large daemons or vicious daemons. The daemons fought in challenges as well, after all.<p>

Amanda's Antoine, a mink, made sense for an immortal's daemon. He was small enough to slink through the shadows, beautiful enough to be a live fur collar, and vicious enough to fight during challenges.

Richie should have survived with his coyote daemon.

Adam Pierson, on the other hand, should not have. When Duncan had first met Adam he hadn't noticed a daemon but had identified Adam as Methos. It made sense for Methos, the mythical immortal, to have a small deadly daemon that could go unnoticed for the most part. Maybe a spider or a snake.

What did not make sense was for Methos' daemon to be a chicken. She would nest in Adam's backpack and occasionally peck at other daemons if they annoyed her, but… well… she was a chicken.

It was rude to comment on another's daemon (which was probably why so many of his Immortal opponents had tried to mock Caoimhe), but Duncan had had to bite back many a comment.

Richie hadn't been so polite. "A chicken? No wonder you always run away from challenges. Hah!"

Adam would just glare and scoop Eve up into his arms. "The Watchers don't recruit people with battle-ready daemons. They know better than that."

"But Joe's Emily is a wolf."

"Joe is also crippled."

"Hey," Joe had interrupted.

Methos had shrugged an apology. But, "you know they wouldn't have let someone with a wolf daemon in if they thought there was a chance that you'd interfere with a challenge. They made an exception for you because of your legs, and you know it."

"Okay, yeah."

The first time Duncan had seen Methos fight a challenge, he had been appalled. When Methos was Adam, his daemon was Eve, but when Methos was Methos, his daemon was Ku-Aya. Duncan had assumed that Ku-Aya would show some spectacular skill or talent. Would peck out her opponents eyes like Kanwulf's raven had pecked out Caoimhe's eyes in that first fight. Instead, Ku-Aya had nested down in Methos' coat left on the ground, and Methos had finally ended the fight by stabbing his opponent's daemon.

That streak of pure ruthlessness that allowed a man to attack a daemon, had made Cassandra's accusations believable, but it still hadn't made sense for Methos to have a chicken daemon. Cassandra refused to say anything about Ku-Aya

Learning that Methos was Death made some sense, but that Eve had been Death's daemon was just peculiar. Caoimhe, though, sniffed Eve thoroughly, avoided getting pecked on the nose, and said that she thought maybe Methos had been telling the truth, that the world changed, that people changed.

But people don't change that much, not after their daemons settle in adolescence. Even Darius with his lioness had always had the urge to protect his people. The light quickening had merely changed who he knew to be his people and how he would protect them.

It wasn't until he was pinning Methos to his car, confronting him about his time as Death that he began to truly believe that there was more to Methos than he had ever thought possible. Caoimhe had cornered Ku-Aya. But then Methos had changed, before his eyes, Methos had become old and vicious and someone who killed easily and for pleasure. "Oh yes."

Caoimhe yipped and backed off.

Ku-Aya had grown. She was lean and muscled, as high as Duncan's waist and at least three meters long from tail to nose. Her small chicken claws now looked like meat hooks. Her sharp beak was not a serrated and toothed jaw that could snap Caoimhe in half.

Duncan found himself backing off, too, when this new Ku-Aya hissed at him. He had never been attacked by a daemon – a daemon attacking a person was just as taboo as a person attacking a daemon – but he didn't doubt for a second that Ku-Aya would and could maul him.

Methos just finished packing his car before getting into the driver's seat. Duncan watched as Methos' dinosaur – dinosaur! – daemon kept herself between them.

"Come, Ku-Aya."

And Ku-Aya leapt onto the top of the car, punching holes into the metal roof to hold on, and crouched as Methos drove off.


	3. Chapter 3: Five Things Methos Knows

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, five things he knows that no one else does and the one he tells Joe<p>

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><p><strong>Five<strong> <strong>things<strong> <strong>Methos<strong> <strong>knows<strong> <strong>and<strong> <strong>one<strong> <strong>he<strong> <strong>shows<strong> <strong>Joe<strong>********************************

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><p>1.<br>Methos knows about demons, despite his protestations to the contrary, but he's hardly the only person who knows. MacLeod has personal experience with a demon, as have various other people around the world. While many people doubt these first hand accounts, some people believe them. What Methos is unique in knowing, though, is that demons feed on that belief. The best way to get rid of a demon is to disbelieve it. The problem with knowing something like that, though, is that it's not the kind of knowledge that can be shared.

2.  
>Methos once met Jesus of Nazareth. Well, "met" might be overstating it a bit. He saw him from a distance, one amongst a crowd of hundreds, maybe thousands. He wasn't the only immortal to make a pilgrimage to see the recent prophet. A lot of immortals (the smart ones) keep track of the local religions and cults because you never know where new holy ground might pop up. But religion makes people angry, so while there were other immortals who could have said if Jesus of Nazareth had a quickening or not, they're all dead. Methos knows better than to say anything one way or the other about a religious leader.<p>

3.  
>The question of how the pyramids of Egypt were built has puzzled historians and scientists for centuries-theories have ranged from pure slave labor to special mechanical devises to alien technology. It has never puzzled Methos because he was there for at least part of it. Every so often Methos looks up the most recent theory but doesn't bother to respond to any of them. He was there, he knows how they were made, and he's not particularly interested in getting into the academic fight where his only evidence is the eye-witness account of an immortal who's not about to claim to be an immortal.<p>

4.  
>Methos knows what manna tastes like. He's collected recipes off and on for most of his life but never found anything else that really resembles it. Or rather, he has found many things that taste like it but since none of them taste like each other, it's not something that can be described. It's frustrating that taste is a sense that is so difficult to describe. After the death of his brothers, he doesn't think there is another living person in the world who remembers the taste of manna. He's never even been tempted to tell anyone how the Christian's foretold Harbingers of the Apocalypse had eaten manna. But he wishes sometimes he could share the experience with someone else.<p>

5.  
>Methos knows how to read "Linear B," as it's now called. He finds the number of people who are obsessed with translating it somewhat irritating. Explaining the language, though, would both attract unwanted attention to Adam Pierson and be kind of boring. It's not that it's a boring language per se, although it kind of is, it's that there's nothing very interesting written in it. Even those parts of his older journals are boring.<p>

+1  
>There are all sorts of things that Methos has done or seen in the past and which he has stopped seeing or doing just because life moves on. He's a modern sort of guy, but somehow it still comes like a punch to the gut when he's researching in one of the Watcher's archives and he hears some of the more modern era historians discussing what a giga might have looked or sounded like. Methos had played a giga for years to keep his family and friends entertained during the cold Norwegian winters. He'd taught his nephews (and one of his nieces) how to play it. He'd learned how to make them from his grandfather-in-law.<p>

It takes the better part of a year for him to find the right supplies and remember the right techniques but in the end, he has a new giga. Joe has been commenting, only half teasingly, about his new propensity for brooding, but Methos thinks of it has a period of nostalgia.

When it's done, he brings it into the bar. Methos avoids acting anachronisticly, it's a dangerous tell to anyone looking for immortals, but Joe is special. Joe already knows who Methos is and he's a musician. Joe should know what a giga looks and sounds like.


	4. Chapter 4: An Old and Rusty Sword

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos,<br>_ Your sword's grown old and rusty_  
><em> Burnt beneath the rising sun<em>  
><em> It's locked up like a trophy<em>  
><em> Forgetting all the things it's done<em>  
>(Giving up the Gun by Vampire Weekend)<p>

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><p><strong>An Old and Rusty Sword<strong>

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><p>The museum exhibit catches Methos by surprise.<p>

The sword is horribly corroded and notched. The leather around the handle had obviously rotted off years ago leaving a few stubborn patches behind. It would probably crack if it were ever used again. But for all its ruin, it is his sword. Its name is Devourer of Souls. Just seeing it again, he can feel the phantom weight of the sword on the palm of hand. His heart rate increases and he's suddenly ravenous for a quickening. He wants desperately to challenge an immortal, any immortal, and feel the quickening pound into him. He would raise Devourer high above his head, to pierce the very heavens, and drink in the soul of his vanished opponent.

"Hey old man, see something of your?" MacLeod claps him on the shoulder and chuckles a bit at the running joke. He leans over the glass case to look at the description. He doesn't know how close he came to dying. Not for making a joke, just for being immortal and being in Methos' presence.

After they'd found out about him, Joe and Mac liked to tease him about visiting museums to see his old stuff, but it actually happens only rarely. Even on those rare occasions when he sees something of his, there's always the faint doubt that maybe he's just misremembering. He's owned a lot of objects over the years, used a lot of tools. So seeing a familiar one in a glass case may mean that specific object had been his or merely that he'd had something similar. It's his own version of deja vu.

But there was no way he could forget that sword, on display in the glass case.

Methos takes a careful breath.

"Huh. This brass sword is interesting." MacLeod remarked. "They think it was probably a family heirloom. It was used intermittently for several centuries. It could have been one of us, I suppose, but was found hanging over the mantel of a house buried in a mudslide. I image an immortal would have gone back for it."

Methos takes another careful breath.

The mountain itself had buried his wife, his sister-in-law and his mother-in-law along with the Devourer of Souls. He had known then that it was time to move on.

He had started changing his name after that. A new name for every life. He doesn't name his swords any more, either. His current sword is a good one. Well balanced, and made by a professional swordsmith who works the Renaissance Faire circuit. Methos uses the sword as a tool and cares for it as a tool. It has no name, it has no expectations.

He looks at the sword locked up like a trophy in the museum. It's old and rusty, its name long since gone. It is a mere relic and cannot call to him anymore. It has forgotten all that it has done and Methos will do nothing to remind it.

"Yes, yes, Mac. I'm sure it's very interesting, but did you really drag me to this museum to look at scrap metal?"

Mac rolls his eyes. "I don't know how you of all people can have no appreciation of the past. But no, there was something else I wanted to show you."

They go to another room of the exhibit to look at some manuscripts, leaving behind a nameless sword, old and rusted, locked in a case.


	5. Chapter 5: xover with Revenge, attempt 1

Disclaimer: I don't own either Highlander or Revenge, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>HighlanderRevenge, Methos/Nolan, Nolan learned from the best

(But I completely misremembered the prompt and wrote a fill for Methos/Emily)

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><p><strong>An epic tale of love and revenge<strong>

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><p>"How did you find me?"<p>

There were no expressions in his voice or on his face. Amanda wondered if he was hiding his emotions or if the amusement and life from before had been a disguise for this empty void. She lifted her chin in challenge. It didn't matter.

"Money can find you anything, and I have a lot of money."

"Not enough to find me." He sounded certain. He was right, too. Money hadn't found him, but "It found Cassandra."

"And Cassandra told you about me. Okay, but somehow I doubt she told you I was a good teacher."

"She tried to tell me to give up on revenge. She told me her story. About how she had given up on revenge on you."

"Did you she try to order you to give up?" There was something in his voice at that, something like interest.

"Yeah. She got all authoritative and told me revenge was not for me."

"And you didn't agree?"

She could feel her eyes go cold. Colder. "I will have my revenge."

"Hmm." He sipped his beer and kept his eyes on her face. "Why did you look for me?"

"You infiltrated the plot of your brother's and they wound up dead and you survived."

"That wasn't revenge. That was survival."

"Then teach me how to survive long enough to take all of them down."

"Survival doesn't work that way."

"Do you think I can't do it because I'm a girl?" She sneered the word.

He actually smirked at that. "Being a girl would actually make it easier. You'd need to practice a look of innocence, but…. Guess again."

"Are you going to tell me that revenge will destroy me no matter what? I'm already destroyed. They destroyed me."

He shrugged. "And yet, here you are. The future always destroys the past. Every change destroys what was. Every choice you make changes who you are. Attempting revenge destroys you who were, yes, but so too does forsaking revenge. They are both choices."

"I choose revenge."

"Why?"

"Because they need to pay!"

"Their actions are a reason for them to suffer. What about you? What do you deserve?"

"I deserve to make it happen."

"Let me be very specific. Forget about them for a moment: Do you want to be the sort of person who can go into a community, identify each weakness, ruin the lives of your targets and innocent bystanders alike, and rejoice in their ruin?"

"Yes!"

"You do realize that makes you a terrorist, right?"

"I've been living with terrorists for the last ten years. They were kinder to me than the soldiers ever were. And if everything Cassandra said about you was true, then you're a terrorist too."

"Terror is a weapon. I'm good at using it, but it's not my preferred tool at the moment. Nor will it be yours. You'll find that hubris works a lot better for your needs."

"I know about terror. The others in prison…" then his words caught up to her. "Does that mean you'll teach me?"

"A teenager who can deny Cassandra's command… that is something special."

"And you don't think my revenge will spill over on you, too?" And now she was suspicious, if he could fool everyone else, was he fooling her? What did he want?

"In a hundred years, your father will be dead."

She interrupted. "My father's already dead."

He ignored that and spoke over her. "Everyone who betrayed him will be dead. You'll be dead. And I will have had front-row seats to an epic tale of love and revenge."


	6. Chapter 6: xover with Revenge, attempt 2

Disclaimer: I don't own either Highlander or Revenge, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was also written in response to the prompt:  
>HighlanderRevenge, Methos/Nolan, Nolan learned from the best  
>(This time I got the prompt right, but I'm not sure of the characterizations.)<p>

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><p><strong>He was a King<strong>

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><p>Nolan had been a king for five years before he had fallen in battle, and for seven more after that before he was defeated in battle. He had ruled with clever words and tricky plans and his own people loved him like a capricious god and his enemies hated him like the devil itself.<p>

It had taken an overwhelming force to defeat him, but it had happened. He had been caught, imprisoned, and forgotten.

The right to rule had been his from birth, the intellect to manipulate had been his by nature, and when he had finally escaped his prison, generations had passed and he had been mad with rage and hatred.

He had killed and hated and searched for his own death.

The fact that no one had yet defeated him just stoked the flame of his hatred for humanity.

Except that years passed and nothing changed. He still killed, they still died, and nothing got better.

He was headhunting his way across the United States, because that was what he did with his time, when he had first met Michael. "Met," in this case, meaning saw, hated, and challenged.

Michael was a roadie for some band and Nolan hadn't bothered to ask his name.

He had challenged, expecting to kill some baby immortal and move on to the next town before the day was over. Maybe he'd stay for the concert, maybe he wouldn't. He'd have to see how the quickening settled.

Except that Michael had somehow disarmed Nolan, and then, "Bloody hell, a quickening would completely mess up the sound system. And frankly, I don't like them."

Nolan had blinked at that.

Upon consideration, he wasn't sure if he liked quickenings either. Liking wasn't really the issue, they were a sign of success on his part and failure on theirs.

He had been so bemused that he had waited to see what this immortal would do next. He had offered his arm willingly enough when the other immortal decided that the best way to get rid of Nolan temporarily was to shoot him up with some drug.

He spent the next few hours seeing pretty colors and feeling all fuzzy like a blanket.

Or maybe fuzzy like a teddy bear?

He was holding a teddy bear when he woke up in the backseat of Michael's car as they drove down the road.

Michael was yelling to the radio. It was probably supposed to be singing, but the windows were open and the wind was making so much noise that he was yelling instead. Nolan knew that the other immortal was aware of him waking up, but aside from a couple of glances in the rearview mirror, he didn't acknowledge it.

After an hour or so of trying to figure out what was going on, Nolan gave it up as a lost cause and joined in singing or yelling to the radio.

He spent the next five years with Michael being a roadie to a roadie.

It began to dawn on him that the world had changed. The world was constantly changing. And he had let himself become a relic of the past. He wasn't sure he liked this new world and it's weirdly fluid social structures.

"At least it means that you can become a king again."

"I thought there weren't any kings here?"

"Come now, we've been following various kings of rock and roll for years. There are all sorts of kings here."

"If I'm going to become a king here, then it'll be a king of technology. All sorts of interesting things are happening there."

"Yes, there are." Michael had considered for a moment. "Want to go back to college with me? I'm going to be Adam Pierson next, studying up on languages, I think."

Nolan had nodded, but, "are you, no, I mean, thank you for being my teacher."

Michael had smiled back at him. "It has been my pleasure to be your friend, maybe a bit of a mentor at time, but I'm not your teacher. You are very direct and honest, and all my lessons are about being sneaky and underhanded."

"Excuse me, which of us was a warlord for more than a decade?"

Michael had rolled his eyes. "Come on, we need to apply to get new IDs and GEDs and applications for universities."

Nolan let Michael's odd comment lie, about Nolan not being sneaky. They went to college together and stayed in contact thereafter.

It wasn't until his one financial supporter was framed for treason that he understood what Michael had meant by him being too direct for true sneakiness. It didn't make sense and he wasn't sure what to do about it.

"Michael, you once told me that I was too direct to be your student."

"Yes?"

"Can you teach me to be sneaky and underhanded?"

Michael sighed. "Nolan, I cannot teach you to be someone who you aren't. Treasure who you are. You are a king. Eventually you will find someone else who has the personality to do what you cannot."

It took more than a decade but Emily Thorne finally came and Nolan realized why Michael had refused to train him to be like her. He didn't want to be like her. She terrified him.

But he would still use her, help her, support her, to accomplish their shared goals.


	7. Chapter 7: Bullets Really Suck

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, one can only die so often on a single day<p>

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><p><strong><strong><strong>Bullets<strong> <strong>Really<strong> <strong>Suck<strong>************

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><p>Methos hates bullets with a burning passion.<p>

He hates dying but it's really more a strong dislike than a true hatred. After all, when he dies, he spends some time dead and then he wakes up. So far, at least.

And he's actually rather ambivalent as far as guns go. They are useful tools and as long as he has one and the other guy doesn't, all is well; and if the other guy has one when he doesn't, then clearly he hadn't planned very well and had better work on that. When both he and the other guy each have a gun, then... well... a fair fight isn't exactly fair when one side is immortal and the other side isn't.

But bullets... bullets were absolutely awful because unless a poor immortal were lucky and the slug of lead went clear through, then he wound up with a noticeable piece of metal in a place where no piece of metal should be.

A bullet lodged in the heart was particularly frustrating.

His heart stopped and he died. Then he woke up and his heart failed to start and he died. Then he woke up and his heart failed to start again and he died.

He was only alive for long enough to punch a couple of digits into his cell phone at a time and then he died for long enough for the phone to revert to stand-by mode.

Luckily he had a freakishly strong quickening from being really old and having killed a lot of other immortals in his time, because his quickening would eventually eat away at any foreign object left in his body.

So eventually his heart would figure out how to work around the remains of the bullet.

At which point Methos would probably get to enjoy the pain and frustration of dying from lead poisoning periodically until the thing finally wore away entirely.

Bullets are pretty much the bane of his existence, Methos thinks. He really hates bullets.


	8. Chapter 8: Remembering Them Alive

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, He loved all of his children. He hated burying them.<p>

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><p><strong>Remembering Them Alive<strong>

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><p>Some of his children came with their mothers when he first married them. Other children he's adopted. But he's always had a soft spot in his heart for the children resulting from an unfaithful wife. A faithless wife is no burden at all when compared to welcoming his sons and daughters into this world and holding them in his arms as they first great the world.<p>

Of the thousand regrets he has of his past, Cassandra is but a single one. At least half of the rest have to do with his parenting skills. Raising kids is hard! Each one is different. Each one is a revelation.

But he loved each and every one of them and for all his mistakes, he tries his best each time and never regrets loving them.

He has years worth of experience mourning the loss of a child. For the vast majority of his past, every parent gained experience in mourning the loss of a child. Children were fragile and it took both skill and luck to care for a child through each disease, through each injury, through each famine and drought and revolution and invasion and a million other things that killed so many.

Of his two hundred and forty-nine children, seventy-two of them survived to adulthood. Fifty-one of them were alive when he left that life to start a new one.

It is a gift of memory that he treasures.

Death is part of life and he knows when he sees each child, that they will die one day. If seeing them die, is the price for seeing them live, then it is worth it. But if he can't see them live, then he refuses to see them die. If the only way to keep them alive for just a little bit longer is to run away from the rumors of a devil who doesn't age, then he will run and he will never look back.


	9. Chapter 9: Letting Go

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos(any), You were always hard to hold, so letting go is easy

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><p><strong>Letting Go<strong>

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><p>They were brothers for a thousand years, but they weren't together all the time. They loved to ride across the landscape making the ground thunder with their approach and drink the blood of their departure. It is a joy to have brothers like his brothers, to know that they are stronger and deadlier and better than anyone else, and never need to fear being alone. They have each other and Silas wouldn't give that up for anything in the world.<p>

But sometimes Silas just wanted to settle down and watch the seasons pass for a time, to care for some animals, see them born, train them, breed them, and watch the generations pass. His brothers understand this, or at least Kronos does and Kronos makes sure the others do as well.

His brothers each have their own interests as well, but since Silas' wildernesses are the most stable, they generally gather to him again when they return from their individual jaunts.

Kronos likes to join militaries, sometimes, likes to conquer a city and rule it, likes for a whole people to look to him for protection as well as destruction. Of the four of them, he is the one who is most often called a god.

Caspian is the most like a god, though. He's the one who hears voices. Sometimes he'll obey the voices, sometimes he'll deny them, but when the voices speak, the four of them all know to pay attention.

Methos is the most easily bored. He doesn't settle like the three of them. He's a grand storyteller but he's never satisfied with the stories that keep the rest of them entertained. He always wants something more, something new. He's the one who leaves to explore on his own the most often and he returns the quickest.

When they're all apart for a while, he'll often rotate between the three of them. He'll spend a season training the animals with Silas and then go to be Kronos' adviser and then on to be Caspian's disciple before going out on his own to apprentice himself to learn some new skill. He's like a butterfly, Silas thinks, skipping from this flower to that one, never settling.

The only way to keep him in one place would be to pin him down and then he wouldn't be who he is anymore. But for a thousand years, in all his wanderings Methos has always returned to the three of them, to their riding and raiding and causing the land.

Silas is joyful each time Methos returns to them, but he is also surprised. He doesn't tell any of them this, not Kronos or Caspian, not even Methos himself. But he is surprised each and every time over the course of those thousand years that Methos returns to them.

When Methos leaves and doesn't return, that final time, Kronos first gets frustrated, wondering when he'll return. Caspian becomes worried, that something has happened. Kronos becomes enraged that his brother has vanished. But Silas… Silas knows that his eldest brother was never theirs to keep, not permanently. He returned to them a hundred times, but before Methos could ever have returned he had to have left them.


	10. Chapter 10: Nothing Lasts Forever

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos + any, You were always hard to hold, so letting go is easy

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><p><strong>Nothing Lasts Forever<strong>

* * *

><p>Penicillin was a miracle. Methos went back to school to train as a chemist just to learn about penicillin. He reveled in the fact that he could create a drug to reduce fevers that a generation ago would have killed them.<p>

He had been a doctor for thousands of years, but it had never really been a study in curing people so much as a study in losing them. How did they die, and why did they die, and was there any way to make the loss easier… until penicillin.

Even though his quickening took care of any illness, any injury, the drug's very existence soothed a hurt that he had carried for so long it was a part of him.

In the euphoria of discovery, he met Pamela and her four-year-old son, John. She had been widowed in the war, and Methos had taken her out dancing and played catch with John, and asked her to marry him and grow old with him. He swore that he would never leave her.

It was an age of miracles and he could keep her.

She was his 68th wife and he loved her the way he loved the time period. Everything was possible. She wore trousers and was tall enough to face him eye-to-eye. She could drive a car and wanted to learn how to fly a plane.

He was at work in the chemistry lab creating miracles when the world reminded him of the lessons he had learned over the years. Nothing mortal stayed, nothing he loved could be kept forever.

The car crash had killed Pamela instantly. She hadn't suffered and there had never been any chance to save her.

John had been too old at that point for Methos to hold in his arms but they had gripped each other's hands during the funeral.

John was diagnosed with polio the next year. He died before reaching his fifteenth birthday.

Methos worked for another year in the chemistry lab but none of his coworkers were really surprised when he submitted his notice and left. He didn't bother even killing off that identity. Just left it to drift away and he started a new life.

This time, he worked in the music industry, because music was always ephemeral and never tricked him into thinking that maybe this time he could keep it.


	11. Chapter 11: Sloth

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, KronosMethos, sometimes they just sat in the tent, talking about the future

* * *

><p><strong>Sloth<strong>

* * *

><p>"You are sinful today. Did you stay up too late into the night?" Kronos was prepared for a hard days hunting but addressed Methos with amusement.<p>

"Mmm," Methos responded from his repose on a pile of furs set out in the warm sun and cool breeze. He felt utterly relaxed and without a care in the world.

With a surge of willpower, he rolled over on his back so that he could look lazily up at his brother. "Have you noticed that the stars have changed? And yet, the moon has not. And the Earth has changed but not in any regular pattern. What do you think of that?"

Kronos put aside his hunting equipment and stretched out beside him. "I think it is a good thing we have no priest for he would surely smite you for asking the question." He sounded perfectly content with the situation. "Does that mean that the Earth is more like the stars while we Immortals are more like the moon?"

"I think some day we will find the path to take us to the stars and we will go and see for ourselves."

"I remember the first time I saw someone ride a horse. I wonder if perhaps somewhere someone has figured out how to harness the birds of the air."

Lazing in the sun in the middle of the day with his brother by his side, Methos felt no qualm in asking a taboo question. "Do you think we'll fly, one day?"

And Kronos felt no compunction in challenging the gods themselves. "Surely we will."

Killing had never been a crime any of his tribes any more than it was among this brotherhood of four. Death within the tribe was horrible, but the killing of Others was perfectly fine. Methos understood that to all the people he killed, they were part of a Tribe and he was an Other - it was an interesting thought that Methos toyed with occasionally, but it hardly mattered.

Sloth, though, was the true crime in any tribe. To waste time on thoughts that hardly mattered, to waste time that could have been spent gathering food or building shelter or creating weapons was a deadly sin.

Relaxing in the spring day, seeing his brother just as relaxed, rambling about taboo subjects and forbidden thoughts, he thought this sinful brotherhood was his paradise.


	12. Chapter 12: xover with a vampire fandom

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlanderany vampire series, Methos, vampires have forgotten how to recognize Death... it's time they were taught to remember

* * *

><p><strong>Come and See!<strong>

* * *

><p>Joe laughed out loud when "Adam" was ushered into the room. Even Mac looked flummoxed. The vampires merely looked blank as only vampires can.<p>

The old man was dressed as some kind of Bedouin shaman with not an inch of visible skin. "Adam Pierson" had died years ago, and Mac only had an anonymous email to contact the old man, but it looked like his new identity was in traditional Arabia somewhere. If the robes, gloves, headscarf and face veil weren't all the color of sand and practically radiating desert mysticism, Joe would have teased him of cross-dressing as a devote Muslim woman. Or perhaps if Methos weren't so damn eerie looking standing there with no visible humanity.

"Who did this to you, Joe?" The question reverberated with rage and Joe's laughter abruptly stopped.

Mac had taken Joe's turning so well, been pleased to have an immortal Watcher, to not have to watch his friend age and die, that Joe hadn't thought that Methos would react any differently. But of course, in the old man's life he must have had friends unwillingly turned. Joe, the new vampire, spoke reassuringly, "It was at my request. It wasn't painful." He blushed; "It was actually rather pleasant. And my, er, sire has agreed to finance a new blues bar for me."

"You chose this?" The disgust in that voice was like a slap and Joe flinched back from it.

Methos reached up and undid something so that his face-veil draped to one side, leaving his young angled face visible. Although Joe knew he hadn't done anything to feel guilty about, he couldn't quite make himself look at his friend's face.

Looking away, though, he looked at the other vampires in the room. They were also drawing back, the older ones hissing in dismay.

With his peripheral vision, he could see that Methos' skin was more tanned than it had been as Adam Pierson, but it had nonetheless begun to glowed with a pure white luminosity.

"I'm not…" Joe started to protest.

"Yes, Joe? The effect gets stronger over time. How long can you bear to hear my voice addressing you directly? Before that which has replaced your soul burns at the very sound."

Methos was right. The other vampires had already fled the room and it was taking all of Joe's strength to not follow them and skitter away. He had been a marine and he was this man's friend, but all his instincts said to run. To crawl. To hide. He didn't have the strength to not flinch at each syllable.

Mac finally put an end to it by stepping between them, shielding Joe with his body. "Methos, stop!"

"And you, Solstice child, Cassandra's Champion, you let Joe give up his soul?"

"That's not what vampirism is!"

"That's _exactly_ what vampirism is. Just because there's no way to scientifically prove the existence of a soul, doesn't mean the loss doesn't matter. Now get out of here, both of you."

"This is the Master of the City's headquarters, Methos," Mac explains as if trying to be reasonable. He's already helping usher Joe out of the room, though.

"Not anymore it's not." Methos voice is hard. "I'm going to call a blessing down on the whole building. I'm going to walk barefoot from here to the airport, I'm going to sing songs of glory and of the end of days and place my hands on every building that I pass. I'm going to create a path of holy righteousness bisecting the city that will last a year and a day. And every vampire in the city who isn't dead by tomorrow is going to be grateful that is all I do since the alternative is to stay and hunt and glory in the bloodshed for real as I slaughter every unclean thing that I can find."

"Methos," Mac starts.

Methos interrupts him. "And you will be grateful, too, because as much as their instincts say to hide from me, mine say to burn them to ash. And that includes whatever remains of Joe."

"Methos…" Joe can barely croak the word, but he has to. He hadn't know this would happen. "I'm sorry."

Methos doesn't acknowledge him and Joe wonders if that is supposed to be a kindness. Instead the old man keeps his eyes on Duncan.

"And Mac, you were Cassandra's Solstice Child and a Millennial Champion. My holy properties increases with every true believe of the Book of Revelations. Yours increases with every true believer of whatever Cassandra's current mysticism is. How long do you think it will last before vampires shy away from you, too?"

* * *

><p><em>AN #2: I can't actually imagine Joe becoming a vampire willingly, but there just aren't that many people that Methos would care enough about to have this response to, so I went a bit OOC with Joe. Sorry!_


	13. Chapter 13: xover with New Amsterdam

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander or New Amsterdam, I'm just playing around with them a bit.

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander  New Amsterdam, John/any, he finally finds the one, the one he can grow old and die with - except, as it turns out, Destiny is a cruel bitch with a sense of irony...

* * *

><p><strong>Destiny is a Cruel Bitch<strong>

* * *

><p>John loved many people before he ever found that one true love that is his destiny.<p>

He loved them and watched them grow old; he loved them and watched them get injured; he loved them and watched them die.

For decades he wasn't even sure what it would mean to be "truly" in love, to have that "one true love" except as a means of escaping the cycle of tragedy he had been caught in. He wasn't looking for love because he wanted love. He had gone looking for love so that he could get it over with.

It wasn't until he met Adam, until they whispered their secrets into each other's skin late at night, until he realized what love means, that he wonders if the curse on him had been a way, not just to keep him around long enough to find his one true love, but to force him to suffer and grow and understand life and death and survival so that he was someone that Adam could love in return.

Because he knows that Adam could never unconditionally love someone else participating in The Game of Immortals, could never lose that hint of suspicion and wariness and fear of betrayal, but that neither could he fully reveal himself, could be fully seen by anyone who hasn't lived longer than any life. John understands more than he wants to.

He understands about love and loss, and now he understands about wanting the end and wanting eternity at the same time. Because he truly loves Adam, and it shows in his face, which shines with that love, but also begins to develop lines.

The understanding that allowed John to see Adam well enough to fall in love with him, means that he knows exactly what he is condemning Adam to with each gray hair.

John will grow old with Adam, but Adam will never grow old with John.

He wishes that he didn't love Adam so that Adam wouldn't care. He wishes he didn't love Adam, so that he wouldn't care. He wishes that he didn't love Adam so that the curse would never leave and he could stay young with Adam forever.

But he does love Adam and he does understand. Because he understands, he never tries to push Adam away like so many of his own lovers have done. Because he understands, he never tries to hide his aging but he always takes care to remain safe. He takes vitamins and gets regular exercise. He lives to be ninety-six and he arranges for time capsules to come to Adam for another 100 years. He tells Adam of his love every single day.

He's on his deathbed when he pulls Adam close to whisper, "Destiny is a cruel bitch, and I love you and I'm sorry for being her pawn in this."

Adam looked at him with ancient eyes and a broken laugh. "As the old bard said, It's better to have loved and lost…"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not."


	14. Chapter 14: And the World Die With You

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, MethosDuncan, Horsemen of the Apocalypse

* * *

><p><strong>And the World Die With You<strong>

* * *

><p>"Mac, why do you insist on accepting challenges?" They were the first words out of his mouth other than, "Hey Mac, what… oooooh," followed by a variety of moans since Mac had arrived back at their place.<p>

"Not that I don't appreciate the side effects." He shifted so that he could place a kiss on Duncan's chest. "I accept, reluctantly and against my better judgment, the fact that you have a moral code that insists you fight the wicked and protect the powerless, and do who knows what with the powerless wicked, but accepting stupid random challenges…"

"If I didn't accept this challenge now, he'd have come after, after someone I loved to force me to fight."

Methos jerked up right and turned so that he could look Duncan full on in the face. He glared. "You had better not be talking about protecting me."

Mac winced.

"I am fully capable of defending myself. But what do you think will happen if you die?"

"I'm not going to die."

"If you die," Methos ignored his, admittedly weak, reassurance, "the world will end."

Duncan schooled his features to seriousness, because he knew that Methos meant it seriously. "And that's why I protect you. I would be destroyed if you were hurt because of me."

Methos closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. Then he opened them and they had lost their accusation. Now they just looked old. "No, Mac, I mean it seriously: If you die, then I'll avenge you."

"I won't die."

Methos ignored him again. "If I avenge your death, then I'll get your killer's quickening, and the quickenings of all the immortals he or she has taken. In this particular hypothetical scenario, that means your quickening, which, also includes Caspian's quickening and a good portion of Kronos' quickening as well."

"You think it will be a dark quickening."

"I've taken quickenings that changed my personality before. They all do to some extent. This one would be strong, yes, and would probably have an effect, but that's not the issue at hand. If I take your quickening, then the quickenings of all four of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be together again. John of Patmos was as true a seer as ever Cassandra is. When the Horsemen come together, we will ride and conquer and kill, all four quarters of the Earth. It will be the end of days."

"Then don't avenge me!"

"Mac, the same is true if the four come together in you, you know. If I die, would you not avenge me?" The question is mocking. Methos would never asked to be avenged, would argue against it even, but he knows Duncan.

Duncan pulls Methos back to him, wrapping his arms around his lover, tucking his head under his chin. "I would avenge you and let the world end to give you justice."

"I know. Me, too."


	15. Chapter 15: Four Is Death

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander.

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, MethosKronos, Four Is Death from TV Tropes

* * *

><p><strong>Four is Death<strong>

* * *

><p>Methos had been alone for nearly two thousand years before he met Kronos. It was the way of immortals in that time period to live on their own, gaining and losing mortal families but having no immortal companions.<p>

The three rules were simple enough to explain to any new immortals and it was considered appropriate to give any new immortal a three-day head-start if you wanted to challenge him. The teacher-student dynamic hadn't developed yet.

Kronos wasn't willing to accept that.

Kronos had led the warriors of his people and under his people had survived every battle and triumphed over every foe. But Kronos had been raised to the position of leader of the warriors. While he had natural talent at fighting, at teaching others to fight, and at leading them in battle, he was also well educated in the process and knew the value of that education.

There were many talented fighters out in the world, and many of those talented fighters had tried to conquer his people. They had failed. It had taken something more than human to finally defeat his people. His people, Kronos included, had died in a plague. He had woken up from his first death late enough in the process that there had been no one to object to his awakening but early enough to help nurse the rest of the village as they died off.

He had mourned them, but knew that the gods must want more from him if he had been given a second life to live. He just had to find out what they wanted.

The first immortal he met told him the rules and then told him to leave, because she didn't want to die and she didn't want to kill him. That seemed fair. He had asked her why they were as they were and she had shrugged. "You should ask one of the old ones, that. I'm still living with my parents. The man who told me the rules said he was a thousand years old but I don't think he knew how to count. Maybe if there is a man who is truly a thousand years old, he will know why we are here."

That seemed like good advice.

After much searching, he found Methos.

Methos who had lived for two thousand years and had two wagons, one to carry the writings of others and one to carry his own. He was old enough to know many answers, old enough to have forgotten many more. He didn't even know how he had first died. His first death was simply by death.

Methos who wouldn't even listen to his questions.

"You listen to the questions of these mortals. You travel around asking questions and answering them. Why, then, do you not listen to me?"

"Because you are immortal. Immortals do not speak with each other. The rules are: Fight one-on-one. Never fight on holy ground. There can be only one."

"There are two of us here now. So there does not have to be only one."

"I do not want to kill you and I do not want to die. I don't think I'll risk breaking that third rule. Go away."

"If I can prove to you that we can travel together, that we can be brothers, will you teach me?"

Methos stared at him for a long moment. Very well. "If you can prove that we do not have to be only one, then I will ride by your side and answer what questions I can. But until then, go away."

"Swear it, old one, and I will go away until I can prove that we can ride together."

"I swear. No go."

So Kronos left and searched for a way to prove that there could be more than one.

None of the immortals he found could help him. Some he killed, most he let live, but none would travel with him.

Until he found a new immortal. Kronos explained to the new immortal, to Caspian, the rules of immortality. "Now comes the time when I should leave or ask you to leave," Kronos said. "Instead, would you like to travel with me?" Caspian had died at war and he was fearless.

"Yes. I will travel with you. We shall be brothers and when meet your future brother, Methos, again. He and I shall be brothers as well. If I have defied the gods already by awakening from death, I can defy them again by being brothers with you."

They rode off in search of Methos.

It was not an easy search. They struggled to track the ancient one. Among other difficulties, they traveled through a famine stricken land where they found another new immortal.

He had trained the animals for his village and he mourned their loss more than the people who had slaughtered them to postpone their own deaths. He was a shrunken man with a large build. Kronos and Caspian shared their supplies with him. They explained the rules to him and offered him the chance to break that last rule.

Silas agreed.

And so they searched and eventually the three of them, immortals and brothers, found Methos.

"Methos," Kronos called out. "Let me introduce my brothers. This is Caspian and this is Silas. They have traveled with me for many years and we do not raise swords at each other."

"If I join you, I will be the fourth brother in your band. And four is a very unlucky number."

"Come now, old one. I have proven that there can be more than one. You have sworn to ride with me if I did so. Come ride with me and be our brother. The eldest and yet the newest brother."

"The fourth brother," Methos corrected. "Four is a very unlucky number, but I did swear, and you have proven that we can ride together. So together we shall ride, the four of us, immortal by pestilence, by war, by famine, and by simple death."


	16. Chapter 16: What Stays the Same

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, gen, Adam Pierson is a fairly mediocre fighter. Methos is not.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>What Changes and What Stays the Same<strong>

* * *

><p>The martial arts are constantly developing and evolving over time. People find methods to hack at each other with bladed weapons or bash at each other blunt ones. They find new tricks and feints. It would be impossible for anyone to truly keep up with it all, although Methos does give it a reasonable attempt, he feels.<p>

He tries to make sure his identities use different styles, which both keeps him in practice and makes it harder for the Watchers to track him.

Adam Pierson, for instance, fights in a relatively modern manner with a broadsword. The style is only a few centuries old. It's not Methos' favorite style, which is why he kind of cheated when he decided that it would be Adam Pierson's style… after all, Adam Pierson was a Watcher and wasn't supposed to be getting any challenges.

But well, c'est la vie. It was probably useful for him to get the experience and develop the skill set.

He couldn't help a twinge of envy for MacLeod's katana.

Maybe his next identity could use a Japanese style of kenjutsu.

But even switching between styles, it was impossible to know all the tricks the newest generation was going to come up with. Which was probably why MacLeod wasn't more suspicious of Methos' poor showing with the broadsword.

What Methos doesn't tell him is that he is training to learn this particular style of sword work, not training to stay alive. He doesn't need to train to win a fight.

There's no need to know all the tricks.

All he needs to know is how the human body functions, and that has changed very little over the years.

He's a killer and a healer, a father and a husband, a martial arts master of a hundred styles and a student of a hundred more. He knows how a human body can be fixed and how it can be broken, how to make it feel good and how to make it feel awful. The flourishes of a given style, the signature moves, hardly matter when it all comes down to joints and tendons and directed force.


	17. Chapter 17: Every Autumn

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, DuncanMethos, turns out someone misunderstood something a long time ago and the Gathering is actually a compulsion to...

* * *

><p><strong>The Gathering Happened Every Autumn<strong>

* * *

><p>Long, long before electricity, before dynamite, before gunpowder, there were quickenings.<p>

It was not long at all after fire was first discovered, people found those quickenings. Some people had quickenings and some people didn't (and you really, _really_ didn't want to be mistaken for someone who did when you were someone who didn't.)

But quickenings were useful.

One side effect was immortality for the vessel, sure, but that wasn't the point. The point was fire.

A quickening holder could scrape his hand to get at the quickening and then light tinder.

And, in the way of people, they experimented and discovered all sorts of useful things. Long before electricity, people discovered electrocution. A quickening holder went into a river and cut himself up to get the quickening to come out and the quickening would electrocute all the fish in the surrounding water.

It was a harvest.

Every fall, when it came time to gather supplies for the winter, a quickening was the first thing a village hoped to gather.

All the villages wanted to have a quickening, so there were a couple of fights around the basic rule that said that each village was only allowed to have one. They could travel during the spring and summer, sure, but since there really weren't enough quickenings to go around, for the Gathering time, at least, there could be only one per village.

Methos tries not to think of the general idiocy of it all, every time he uses an electrical socket.


	18. Chapter 18: It seemed like a good idea

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, even he was young once and stupid enough to try to ride a thing like that<p>

* * *

><p><strong>It seemed like a good idea at the time<strong>

* * *

><p>Methos didn't like to talk about his younger days. For the most part, he just let people believe he didn't remember them and that was that.<p>

It wasn't a lack of memory – although really he didn't seem much difference between not remembering something and not thinking about it, and he had never had much respect for psychologists anyway – so much as a lack of any desire to try to explain himself.

The horsemen were hard enough to explain and at least both Mac and Joe had a concept of what it meant to be power-hungry. They were too socialized, though, to realize what it was like in the early days when anything and everything was possible. Nothing could hold him back. There were no elders to tell him right from wrong, there were no teachers to tell him smart from stupid. He was immortal! What's the worst thing that could happen?

And hey, the horse would never have been domesticated if people hadn't seen a large creature that wanted to trample them and thought it was a good idea to sit on its back.

The day the giant carnivorous lizard with the claws longer than Methos' arm had managed to chase him up a tree, it had just seemed like an omen that all he had to do was let himself fall and he'd be on its back.

Methos refused to admit that it had been a stupid idea.

Okay, maybe the implementation of the plan had been flawed – it had seen him fall, snapped it's jaws and taken a good chunk of Methos' guts with him, which was how Methos had realized that he really could recover from just about anything – but the idea wasn't that stupid. Really.

It had been several millennia since he'd last seen one of those lizards, and he'd never actually managed to sit on one for longer than a couple of heart-beats – although he had managed to ride an ostrich once! – but next time he saw one he was sure to get it right.


	19. Chapter 19: Identity

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos & Duncan, Duncan is getting _old_ and Methos knows it was hard work to get him this far.

* * *

><p><strong>Identity<strong>

* * *

><p>Methos is generally known, or rather, not known, as The Eldest.<p>

Darius was The Priest.

Connor McLeod is The Highlander.

Coltec was The Evil Eater.

Amanda is The Thief.

Most immortals who survive for long enough to develop personal relationships with other immortals acquire titles. The titles stay with them even as names come and go.

Immortals change their identities regularly, at least once every generation and frequently more often than that. Names come and go with the time period, the geography, the culture. The titles are identifiers that allow friends and enemies to recognize an immortal, replacing their mortal name with an immortal identity.

But Duncan has kept his mortal name for 15 generations. His immortal identity is merely an echo of his teacher's.

That kind of retention of a simple mortal identity takes effort and cannot last forever. As idiotic as Methos thinks Duncan is being, he can't help but be impressed with the type of effort that went into keeping Duncan McLeod of the Clan McLeod alive and active. And he can't help but mourn the inevitable loss when Duncan starts getting old. Duncan McLeod is dated and anachronistic and it has been past time for him to be set aside.

Methos avoids other immortals to the best of his abilities, but he does wonder, when Duncan finally accepts his immortality, what title will he have?


	20. Chapter 20: Keeping the Memories

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, the only creature who can compare a big cat's roar to a dinosaur's<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Keeping the Memories<strong>

* * *

><p>Methos is very careful to keep his mind focused on the present. He has so much past trailing behind him, so many memories waiting to lure him in and never let him surface.<p>

He tells Mac and Joe that he doesn't remember his distant past and it's true enough. They think it's an inability, though, rather than an act of will on his part. He could remember it, he just doesn't do so.

Frankly, they should realize this.

After all, quickenings carry memories.

This has two effects:

The first is that the memories are inheritable by the winner of a challenge. Some immortals find it uncomfortable or difficult to access those memories while others find it all too easy. Or maybe it's that some quickenings are easily read and others more cryptic.

The second effect, though, is that immortals have extremely good memories for their own lives. Sometimes it's useful to remember the face of an enemy made two thousand years ago so that he can be avoided; sometimes it's annoying how that enemy can still remember him. Sometimes it's awful to remember tortures and torments; wonderful to remember skills and abilities; and wonderful and awful both to remember lost loves.

If he needs to, if he wants to, if he has the time and space to, he can remember whole lives spent with each of his wives, going back to his first woman whom he had courted with meat and hides.

He had given her the teeth of a great saber toothed tiger and they had made love on the pelt. She had never born him any children but they had survived together to be elders of their clan.

He could still remember the roar of the saber tooth tiger.

The reverberating roar of that tiger and the sweet warmth of that woman was what anchored him to his memories of Methos, he thinks.

It was generations later that he had beheaded his first immortal and gained his first quickening and with it a thousand memories of lives and first kills and first women and first hunts.

He knows the trumpet call of a woolly mammoth and the growl of the dwarf panda.

He knows the sounds of the dinosaurs.

Methos lives firmly in the present, or tries to. But sometimes, rarely, when he's spending a decade or two in a monastery or as a hermit or something relatively boring, he'll allow the memories to surface. The next oldest living immortal is half his age. He doubts any other immortal living accesses memories like he does. He's probably the only creature alive who can compare a saber tooth tiger roar to that of a dinosaur.

Even if he chooses to not remember very often, he still keeps the memories.

He wants to live forever. He intends to live forever. But if he dies, he hopes his memories live on in that next person.


	21. Chapter 21: The Value of Money

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander or any of the characters.

A/N #1: This was in answer to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, sometimes he plays the lottery just to donate all his winnings to a kids' charity or orphanage<p>

* * *

><p><strong>The<strong> <strong>Value<strong> <strong>of<strong> <strong>Money<strong>************

* * *

><p>Methos goes through periods of wealth and periods of poverty.<p>

The reason that Adam Pierson isn't wealthy isn't to hide from anyone, although there's that, too. It's because Methos in the late 20th century isn't wealthy.

Modern immortals seem to think that the older ones must be incredibly wealthy. Being able to make long-term investments is great and being able to inherit money from yourself can be a real benefit to accumulating it. On the other hand, he's had his nations invaded and his land lost by conquest a dozen times at least. Banks have closed. Hurricanes and droughts and earthquakes and mudslides and a dozen other disasters have all impoverished him.

More often than that, though he just leaves his old life behind in order to start the next one. He could hardly leave his widows with nothing or his orphans with no inheritance.

Plus objects and inheritance patterns could be tracked.

There have been times when no one would take his money because he was holy and everything he wanted was given to him.

There have been times when no one would take his money because he was cursed and communities would stone him to death before allowing him inside the bounds of their market.

Money comes and goes and it's only as valuable as the things it can get him and as costly as its ability to tie him down.

In the periods of wealth he takes advantage of the benefits and deals with the costs and in times of poverty he makes due with having a lot of knowledge. In most cases where it matters, knowledge really is power and can compensate for lack of money.

He's been safely middle class for a couple of generations now, and looking at the lottery ticket, Methos wonders if that's about to change.

Adam Pierson had bought it as a lark, but now it's a million dollars waiting to be claimed.

How would his life change if he had this money?

Was there anything at all that he wanted to buy at this moment in time?

He already lived where he wanted to live, wore what he wanted to wear, and traveled when he wanted to travel.

Money wasn't an end goal. It was a means. So what did he want this to be a means to?

A million dollars is a thousand times a thousand. He thinks of the dollar menu at McDonalds and thinks of the times in his life when he has starved.

He wants to live in a world where people don't starve.

He sponsors a thousand children for a thousand days each.

The next day Mac uses the news story about a big anonymous donation to Save the Children in his attempt to convince Methos that people are inherently good and care about each other. Methos rolls his eyes and counters with a few choice experiences from his own past.

"People aren't good," he tells Mac.

He only murmurs to himself, once Mac is out of earshot, "But they're still worth saving."

* * *

><p><em>AN #2: Save the Children is a real nonprofit that has a very good reputation for helping kids and making good use of donations. _


	22. Chapter 22: Getting on with it

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, the day after he wins The Game<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Getting on with it…<strong>

* * *

><p>The students had actually shown up to class. Observing them through the window in the door, Methos was impressed. Admittedly, they seemed to have mostly decided that this was a great time an place to meet up to gossip about how the Gathering had gone down.<p>

By the time that the Gathering had actually come to a head (as it were), there had been no way to hide it. After all, not only were methods of surveillance at an unprecedented level of technology but a lot of the immortals who were involved were smart, rich, in positions of authority, and couldn't be killed without drawing a lot of attention.

There had been a flurry of legislation, but the issues worked out to be that Immortals had essentially a religious calling to participate in mortal combat. Preventing them from dong so would be impossible, so it might as well be made legal. As long as the Immortals involved were both consenting adults and made sure to compete in special arenas were no bystanders (or expensive electronic equipment) was in danger, then the Game was allowed to proceed.

One of the defining features of the Gathering, turned out to be that all the Immortals were consenting. Methos had been a lone hold out for a while, having had plenty of experience suppressing his own blood lust, but eventually he, too, made his way to the Gathering arena and entered the final battle. He'd been fresh and relaxed when he finally showed up, the last of the Immortals to go public.

Those last days had been a horror, challenge after challenge, but by the time Methos had arrived, most of the other immortals were already dead. He'd fought in the final three days and won every challenge.

It was all done and he didn't even have to miss a class.

He smirked and then stepped through the door.

"Okay, class, I hope you did your reading, because I'm grading the discussion today. Someone, what can you tell me about pidgins versus creoles?"

The chatter came to an abrupt halt.

"Uh, sir!"

"Yes, Stephen?"

"What are you doing here?"

Methos raised an eyebrow. "I teach this class, as you might recall."

"But, but you just won The Game! Shouldn't you be… uh."

Methos let him stutter for a bit before offering: "Ruling the world?"

"Something other than teaching a college linguistics class?"

"I just fought for my life and my right to live a regular life. I think I'll get on with living my regular life."

"But, don't you need time to recover, at least?"

"Kid, I'm immortal. I've been fighting and killing for a very long time, and the one lesson I've learned, is that when it's over, it's over, and time to get on with living. So, creoles and pidgins. Yes, Rachel?"

"Well, creoles are…."


	23. Chapter 23: Change

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos,<br>_I am older than you, Man._  
><em>I was there in your garden of Eden,<em>  
><em>and before: my roots go deeper than you know,<em>  
><em>deep into your heart and deeper still.<em>  
><em>They clasp the bones of your ancestors<em>  
><em>and go deeper yet.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Change <strong>

* * *

><p>It's not true that immortals don't change. They do, just not quickly and not like mortals. They change age the way a species ages, at the rate of evolution.<p>

Methos tells people that he's five thousand years old, because that's (approximately) how long he feels like he's been human. Little by little he's changed to match the dominant species.

Others have done it too, he thinks. He remembers other immortals from before.

But he's fairly sure he's the only Immortal currently living who survived the last global extinction event. Who remembers in even a hazy way being something _different_. Who remembers being cold-blooded and smooth-scaled and the temptation of teasing and taunting the members of this new species that is supplanting his own.

Who remembers when warm-blooded creatures were there to be snapped at and eaten whole. Racing across the land in a small group, killing wherever they went, was nothing new, but riding horses was different.

Sometimes, when he's lazing in the sun, lounging on a rock, soaking up the heat, he can remember a sense memory from being young.

He's been a doctor a hundred times in recent centuries and has studied his own body as thoroughly as he has any other, and yet he sometimes wonders how much of his past is still present.

And he wonders, when the next extinction occurs, who will the rising species be? What will be become next?


	24. Chapter 24: A Poison Like Any Other

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was written for the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, he cannot remember <em>ever<em> having a hangover

* * *

><p><strong>A Poison Like Any Other<strong>

* * *

><p>"Well, that was quite the party," Methos chirruped. "And look," he swept the curtains aside to let in the weak morning sun. "It's sunny out."<p>

Joe thought about killing him. Why didn't he have a sword cane? He should have a sword cane so that he could kill immortals with it. Of course, even if he had a sword cane, he would have to move in order to use the cane to kill Methos. "Please, Adam. Be kind to an old mortal."

Methos laughed. But he did bring over a glass of something for Joe to drink, it was thick and unpleasant but it helped make the hangover manageable. He levered himself upright on the sofa and looked around. Mac looked about like Joe felt, except minus Methos' hangover cure.

Methos, on the other hand, looked bright and chipper. "Okay, old guy, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Drink as much as you do. I know you're immortal, but come on. You drank more than both of us put together and don't even have a hangover. Mac is over there groaning, and you…" Joe shook his head.

Methos smirked. "Yeah, I don't get hangovers."

Joe studied Methos, wondering if this was a wind up for some joke. Likely at Mac's expense but possibly at his own. "You don't get hangovers. At all?"

"Nope."

"And why not?"

"Joe, didn't you once ask me to 'name my poison,' when offering me a drink? Alcohol is a poison, and I'm an immortal."

"I would like to point out that Mac is over there trying not to puke his guts out."

"Yeah, this modern alcohol is a lot stronger than what it used to be. Used to be that beer had just enough alcohol to kill off the bacteria, or you hoped it did, anyway, but not much more. You drank it morning, noon, and night and avoided all that nasty water. Mac probably thought he could drink as much of this stuff as the old stuff."

Mac groaned from the corner. "Please leave me out of this."

"You sure you don't want some hair of the dog what bit you?" Methos offered.

"Go. Away."

Joe laughed and then regretted it. "Ow. But come on, how can you possibly not get hangovers. There's being able to hold your liquor and then there's you."

"Joe," Methos sighed. "Alcohol is a poison and quickenings get rid of poisons just as they heal injuries."

"But shouldn't you still get the results? If you get cut, the cut gets healed but the blood doesn't automatically come out of the clothes. Even with quickening healing the alcohol you should still get the results."

"I don't get hangovers, but here's the real secret. I don't get drunk either."

"What?"

"My quickening heals alcohol before it makes it to my blood stream. For the most part. If I really, really want to get drunk, I can do it by IV with industrial grade alcohol. I tested it out once, and it was interesting, but really, I still healed too fast to really get the dehydration effect that causes hangovers. Maybe in my next life I'll be a biochemist and see what exactly the quickening is doing with the alcohol."

"So you drink beer like water because it is literally like water to you?"

"Water with a better taste. Yup."

"And you let us all get drunk and be silly around you while you are stone cold sober?"

"Sober as a judge." Methos grinned. "And not even the old school judges who were high as a kite most of the time trying to commune with the gods. Do you want me to tell you all about what you and Mac got up to last night?"


	25. Chapter 25: Memories, Ideas, and Joy

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, His 3,000 year old diaries have many interesting stories.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Memories, Ideas, and Joy of Life<strong>

* * *

><p>For a thousand years, when Methos was the strategist for the Apocalypse, his journals were full of war strategies and maps.<p>

How to infiltrate a city, how to terrorize a society, how to bait an ambush. A thousand years of war strategy focusing on a using a small four-man force to destroy armies. It was a constant joy to challenge himself and see how far he could push their limits. They achieved miracles, but there were always new limits to push, new strategies to devise, new techniques to test out…

Until the day when there wasn't.

One day Methos had sat in his tent, toying with his ink, and wasting his parchment, because he couldn't think of a new strategy. They had done everything he could think of. New strategies would all require that the opposing side act in new and interesting ways and they weren't. It took him a year to realize that he was well and truly bored.

He captured Cassandra to keep himself amused but it was only a taste of what else there was out there. She knew things about healing and herbs that he didn't know, but she had been a mere apprentice to a mere local village elder.

It was not enough.

His mind, like his journals, was empty and waiting to be filled.

When he left his brothers and their Apocalypse behind, he had feared he would miss them.

Instead, he found a dozen things to distract him, a hundred things, a thousand. Suddenly there was not enough time in the day or space on the parchment to write down all he was learning.

There was medicine and philosophy and botany and mathematics and architecture and so much more.

A thousand skills he had missed out on learning when all he did was steal the product for a thousand years. He was overwhelmed with choice. Within ten years he had filled up more journals than he had in the preceding ten centuries. They had recipes and proofs and stories and poems.

When he looks back at the journals now, it seems like they were written by two different men. The journals of the Apocalypse are straight forward and boring and he rarely goes back to review them. The journals from afterward though, spark memories and ideas each time he re-read them and inspire in him again the joy of life and discovery.


	26. Chapter 26: xover with Star Wars

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander or Star Wars, I'm just making use of the fair use exemption. Yay, fair use!

A/N: This was in response to the prompt:  
>HighlanderStar Wars, Yoda & Methos, Yoda's master had been a legend known only as Adamas

* * *

><p><strong>"Pay attention, little hopper."<strong>

* * *

><p>Fitting, it was, Yoda thought, that to darkness his student turned.<p>

Right, it was not; but fitting.

To emotion, Dooku had fallen. To fear and hatred, he had himself given.

Emotion, Yoda avoid. Fear and hatred, Yoda escaped.

Shake his head, Adamas would.

Shake his head, Adamas had. "You want peace so much, little hopper, that you are giving up emotion, and that's not right and it's not healthy. It is the balance of the dead and gone, who feel nothing and do nothing. Fear is natural, it helps you. Hatred is natural, too, my little one. It is okay to hate those who have harmed you."

"Hate, I do not! Fear, I do not! Jedi, I am to be!" insisted, he had.

"Everyone alive fears, everyone alive hates. Even the Jedi. And when the Jedi do not feel enough, the Sith are there to feel for them."

"Understand, I do not." A dismissal of the words, it had been.

"I know, little one, I know. As many times as I explain it, you will not understand it until you allow yourself to feel."

"Obey the force, I do. Fear, to the dark side, leads."

"No, my pollywog: fear, to bravery, leads. Love leads to fear. Fear leads to hatred. Hatred leads to pain. Pain leads to discovery. Discovery leads to love. It is a revolution. The balance is through time as well as space. And it is not something we keep, little hopper. The balance simply is. It has been and it will be. You are of a long-lived people. You will see things come and go and come again."

"Long-lived, they are not! Dead they are!" Screamed, he had. And pleased, Adamas had been.

"Yes. Dead, they are. But you are not. Do not pretend your emotions are as dead as your people. Miss them, mourn for them, avenge them, and finally, live for them. In your life you will see many things, many great things and many terrible things. To love is also to fear and to hate. To have joy, is also to have pain. That is the balance, and it is true and it is worth it."

"Worth it, it is not," to his long vanished master, Yoda spoke.

"Balance is, balance has been, and balance will be." The memory of his master replied. "How many will you push into darkness by allowing yourself only light?"

"Jedi, the others think you were. Greatest of Jedi, to have taught me, they think. Tell them of you, I do not."

"It's good to be a myth."

"Jedi, you were not."

"I wasn't Sith, either."

"Know that, I do. But Jedi, you were not."

"The balance is, was, and will be. I am balanced, little one. It is my greatest hope, little pollywog, that one day you will find balance, too. But if you do not come to that, then, little hopper, I hope you die peacefully before the balance finds you."

"Jedi, I am. Jedi, I have been. Jedi, I will be."


	27. Chapter 27: xover with Sherlock

Disclaimer: I own neither Highlander nor the recent Sherlock show on BBC. I would note, however, that at this point the Sherlock Holmes characters are safely out of copyright, something that I imagine the BBC is taking full advantage of.

A/N: Unlike the other ficlets here, this was not written in response to an external prompt but was instead a way of fending off an attack plot-bunny by appeasing it with a 100-word drabble.

* * *

><p><strong>Anderson hates Sherlock<strong>

* * *

><p>Most people assume Anderson hates Sherlock because Sherlock is bloody irritating. Some people think it's professional jealousy- Sherlock himself seems to be one of these. Very few people think he really has a dark secret, but his extramarital affair appeases those who wonder.<p>

The real reason is that Sherlock has trapped Anderson.

With Sherlock around, Anderson can't wear his sword. With Sherlock around, Anderson can't speak Hindi like a native. With Sherlock around, Anderson can't leave.

Anderson has been Anderson for twenty years, has a broken marriage, and is ready to die and become someone else.

Anderson really hates Sherlock Holmes.


	28. Chapter 28: Confusing Gender Stereotypes

Disclaimer: I don't own the Highlander universe

A/N: this was written in response to the prompt:******************************************************************** Highlander, Methos, the world oldest hag

* * *

><p><strong>the<strong> <strong>confusing<strong> <strong>results<strong> <strong>of<strong> <strong>gender<strong> <strong>stereotyping<strong>********************

* * *

><p>"Methos?" The look on MacLeod's face was priceless.<p>

"Have a beer." She tossed him a can in a gentle arc that would either allow him to catch it easily or hit him in the balls if he didn't break out of his shock soon enough.

He managed to catch it, but only barely.

Methos is the world's oldest man and the Watchers are constantly confused by why they can't keep track of him. They are, after all, extremely experienced in tracking the immortals, those great timeless warriors and scholars.

No one, historically, pays any attention to the crowds of women, though. Why bother, really? Not even the Watcher's bother much, since most of the female immortals live on holy ground or flit from one male immortal lover to another.

Or so they think.

Methos finds this a combination of useful and annoying. She's hardly the only female immortal to simply not be noticed by anyone.

Somehow MacLeod has managed to avoid this basic social conditioning. She has known she would have to be increasingly careful of her identity as the women's movement has progressed and gender-based prejudice became less prevalent, but MacLeod should have all the prejudices of his upbringing in the Clans.

Apparently the combination of immortal women he's run with, though, has managed to wear that down.

In a crowd, most headhunters won't even look for a woman.

She has plenty of experience dressing as a man.

In fact, she mostly alternates her lives. One life as a man, one life as a woman, and no one ever manages to track her between the lives.

She slept with men or women as she desired or as was appropriate; she has married whichever gender was appropriate for the time. She tends towards the more modest cultures, in her travels, where full covering with appropriate for both genders. It was difficult (though not impossible, funny enough) to cross-dress while naked.

She had been a horseman with Kronos, Caspian and Silas for a thousand years and they had all seen each other naked, but they were gods and Methos the eldest of them all, and Death was so _obviously_ male, that they had always been _brothers_. Even when she went into battle butt-naked, the few survivors would describe her as male.

Eve Pierson, though, is decidedly female, in her jeans and tank top. It made getting into the Watchers much easier: all of her Watcher identities have been female. They know that women can pass unnoticed where men cannot, they simply don't take that knowledge to its logical conclusion.

But looking at MacLeod's wide eyes and surprised-but-no-denial that she is _both_ Methos _and_ female, she knows that there's change in the air.

The world is different, she is different, and life is about to get interesting.


	29. Chapter 29: No Dichotomy

Disclaimer: I continue to not own the Highlander universe, much to my dismay.

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, scientists are theorising about the formation of the earth and it thrills Methos. Because there was life much so older than him<p>

* * *

><p><strong>No Dichotomy<strong>

* * *

><p>Methos has a thousand interests and preferences and desires, but he is careful to ration them out to each of his personas in a reasonable manner, ensuring that his changing personas don't overlap too much. Adam Pierson liked beer but Matthew had liked wine and Timothy had been a pothead. They all had different music tastes, they had different accents, they had different interests... except for geology.<p>

Ever since geology had become a science, since there had been records, Methos hadn't been able to resist reading about the formation of the Earth. When TV was invented, when the History Channel started showing documentaries, he would watch scientists talk about things that were older than him.

In time lines that included all of humanity as a flash in the pan in comparison to millions of years and geological changes, he is no older than anyone else.

In comparison to a hundred million years, the difference between a few decades and a few millennium hardly matter.

He has long accustomed himself to being in relationships with people who are so much younger than him, to pretending to be so much younger than he is, to living a double life, always.

But thinking about the formation of the earth and the life of the different eras gives him an thrill and an uneasy pleasure. In this, the dichotomy of his personality merges into one entity. Who he always is and who he is for now and who so many other people out there are, are all the same in this: Geology makes them very young.


	30. Chapter 30: Selfidentify as a survivor

Disclaimer: I don't own the Highlander universe or characters

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt: Highlander, Methos, I have no gender

* * *

><p><strong>I self-identify as a survivor<strong>

* * *

><p>I think my next identity will related in some way to the transgender community.<p>

They are fascinating. They identify themselves so closely with a gender. It's who they are, and the fact that they have been mislabeled by biology is something that they can and will correct.

It's a new way of thinking, and the only way to survive is to learn new ways.

Because I don't identify as a gender at all. Oh, Adam Pierson is decidedly male. But Jennifer Adamson had been just as decidedly female. And Death had been neither. Death was a phenomenon and a force of nature.

I am lucky to have been born - or created, or come into being - with a runner's body rather than a brawler's. Sharp features and few curves have allowed me to run from danger and hide from greed and change identities with ease.

I read MacLeod's chronicle describing him dressing as Kate the shrew for a performance. It was hilarious but also heart-rending. Because as ugly as he had been as a woman, he had also been unbelievable. I don't know anyone over the age of a thousand who has not spent at least one life living as the opposite gender.

I try to alternate. It prevents people from easily tracking me.

I've been married 68 times: 43 wives and 25 husbands. Mostly widows with multiple children already, though, since I had no desire to repeat the mistake of my 6th, 9th, and 10th marriages and be abandoned as infertile.

The woman's movement has done wonderful things recently to break down the gender barriers that have been building up for the majority of my life.

But what most people have forgotten, even the younger immortals, was that gender wasn't the big divide it is now when I was born (or created or appeared.)

The big divide in those days was those who could provide and those who could not. Those who could survive and those who could not.

My various identities are male or female as they are needed.

But Methos, when I am Methos, I'm not male or female... when I am Methos, I am a survivor.

* * *

><p><em>AN 2: I don't generally write in the first person (unless I'm writing as, you know, _me_.) But the English language is terribly remiss in not having a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. I have a rant about the problems inherent in this linguistic failure and this fic barely escaped being consumed by that rant. Anyway, if you have specific thoughts, suggestions or opinions regarding writing in the first person, I'd love to hear them._


	31. Chapter 31: He Knew What was What

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander

Author's Note: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, Richie, borrowed time<p>

* * *

><p><strong>He knew what was what<strong>

* * *

><p>Richie was a street kid and he knew what was what. He knew that street kids had hard lives and short ones and the fact that they were happier on the street than back at their original homes, well, that said a lot.<p>

He didn't expect to ever grow old enough to drink legally so there was no reason to wait until then. It was the same rational that had him follow the guy with the sword. Sure, the man could kill Richie, but then so could a whole hell of a lot of other things, and he was curious. So there really wasn't much to lose but a lot to win in satisfying his curiosity.

As it turned out, there was more to win than he had ever dreamed of. There was a home, and a job, and a pair of almost-parents. There was art and Paris.

It was a miracle, that kept on getting more miraculous because even when he did die, still too young to drink beer legally in the United States, it still kept going.

There were motorcycles and girls and an almost-father. There were secrets and tuxedos.

There was the promise of forever.

But there were also killers out to get him and fights to the death, and Richie was a street kid. He'd gotten a miracle twice now, getting off the street and surviving his own death. But surviving The Game would take whole new miracle and he knew what was what. He would try for three times the charm, but he didn't really expect to receive it.

He'd try his hardest, but he knew he'd been living on borrowed time since he first hit the streets.

It was still better than where he'd been before.


	32. Chapter 32: Immortal with a Kiss

Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander

Author's Note: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, MethosAlexa, "make me immortal with a kiss"

* * *

><p><strong>Immortal with a Kiss<strong>

* * *

><p>"I wanted... I don't even know what I wanted," Alexa's words are half-muffled by Methos' shoulder but he can hear her well enough he keeps his arms wrapped tightly around her. She holders tighter still, as if there were any chance that he'd let go against her wishes. "But I wanted to live my life and leave something behind. Maybe I would have created something, or done something, or maybe just had a kid who had a kid and I'd leave behind a family tree. But I wanted... I didn't want to just disappear. You'll think I'm silly, but I wanted immortality."<p>

Methos felt his through constrict. He hadn't told her about immortals, he didn't plan to ever tell her. He couldn't. Even if she could deal with it, he couldn't deal with seeing the knowledge in her eyes. But still, "I don't think you're silly. I would do anything to make you immortal."

He had tried. He had tried so hard, but the shards of the Methuselah stone were dispersed at the bottom of a river and all other possibilities researched and discounted.

"I just want to be remembered."

"That I can give you." He kissed the top her head. "I will remember you for all of my life."


	33. Chapter 33: xover with Harry Potter

Disclaimer: I don't know either Highlander or Harry Potter

Author's Note: This was written in response to the prompt:  
>HighlanderHarry Potter, Methos, Death rides a threstral

* * *

><p><strong>Death's Horse <strong>

* * *

><p>There are many tales of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, of the devastation they brought, of the horrors their coming foretold, of the ways in which this spell or that prayer might cause them to pass by. Often the stories were contradictory, and even more often they were false. But there are three stories about the horse of Death which are both contradictory and true.<p>

Rare were the people who, upon seeing Death ride with his brothers, lived to tell the tale. But those who did, and who had dared to raise their head and watch the four ride by, said that three of the horsemen road great powerful horses, such as warlords and gods would covet, but the fourth rode a creature of skin stretched tight over bones, and sharp teeth. It was a nightmare of a horse for nightmare of a rider. It was the type of horse that would scare off even warlords and gods, but it carried Death like a prince.

As rare as those who survived seeing Death, were those who had never seen death in its minor visits. When people live in small villages and tightly bound familiar clans, they would gather at their grandfather's death bed, or take turns nursing an ailing child. Such deaths were common and rare was the person who had not attended such a death.

But Death and his brothers rode for a thousand years and many rare things can happen in a thousand years. So there were those who said that three of the horsemen came riding in, on horses red or black or pale. Death alone did not ride a horse, but rather flew beside his brothers, never touching the ground, as if riding the ghost of a horse long dead.

More common than either of these witnesses, though still rare, were the slaves and servants of the horsemen who, upon growing old or infirm, were left behind and survived their abandonment. Of those who survived and spoke of the horsemen, they said that Famine took food from the mouths of infants to give to the dogs, and he took care of three of the horses, giving them the best of the grains that no slave was allowed to touch. But it was War who took care of Death's horse, and fed him the rotted bodies of his enemies.

These are the stories told of Death's horse, for no one other than the Horsemen themselves knew of the love and respect that existed between Death and his horses, or knew that sometimes, when the mood struck them, they would ride into the sky and fly for a time. There was love there, as well as death, but no one who saw that ever told the tale.


	34. Chapter 34: This too shall pass

Disclaimer: I do not own Highlander, alas

A/N: This was written for the prompt:  
>Highlander, Methos, if anyone is a god to Methos that is likely quite beyond the ken of humans - and he probably doesn't worship it anyway<p>

* * *

><p><strong>This too shall pass<strong>

* * *

><p>The priest had come by several times to check on Methos, sitting his silent vigil in the church, but he only shook his head and the priest went away again.<p>

Darius would have sat beside him in silence for as long as it took Methos to give up and demand a game of chess to drown out their silent debate on faith.

Methos had grown up worshiping nature spirits. Every tree had a spirit, every rock and every stream required proper respect and reverence.

Once, he had spent several centuries worshiping a single tree. He had nurtured it from a seed and watched it grow. He had fertilized it with the blood from his veins and he had defended the village that grew around it with the blood of his enemies. At a time when he was so close to losing his faith, he had loved that tree.

It had grown great and thick and bright and a grove had grown around it.

He had loved it until it died and beyond.

There had been no great tragedy.

It had been healthy and cared for. There had been no lightning strike or ax blade. It had merely grown old and time had taken it away.

He had not allowed it to be harvested or burned or removed from the grove it had started and lived in for so long and he had stayed with it until it's body had returned to the earth entirely. By the time it was gone, so too were every single living person other than himself who had ever known it when it lived. The young child who had climbed it one last time before it got too brittle had already died of old age.

Another time, he had stayed in a village on the side of the mountain. He had married and his wife had had children. The village was small and poor and so he traveled as a merchant, but always returned with funds to support his family. He returned every few months while his wife lived and together they had worshiped the spirit of the mountain.

After she had been laid to her final rest, he had taken longer trips. But he had returned to help his children and his children's children and their children too. The trips grew progressively longer and he had remarried many times, and lived many different lives, but he tried to return at least once a generation to see his family. He no longer worshiped the mountain, though, because they didn't, and because each time he returned, it was less a mountain and more a worn hill.

The wind was taking it away with each breath.

There were spirits everywhere, even in people, and some of them grew to be gods. But all of them faded away again.

People worshiped them when they were strong, begging them for blessings and protections or merely to refrain from raining down fire. Methos understood the desire to worship something greater than himself, to worship and ask for something and hope that it is delivered and maybe it will be.

But the only thing greater than himself that he has ever known is time. It has given him great gifts, he knows. It has given him everything he is or has been or will be. But it also takes those gifts away. Everything he is or has been or will be, everything anyone else is or has been or will be, all disappear into the mouth of time, to be chewed up and vanish into nothingness.

He misses Darius and nothing that tortured young man on the cross offers can bring back his old friend.

Darius had a faith in something that was greater than him. Darius had thought there was something greater than him and that that something was good.

Methos knows that there is something greater than him, his own god of time, but he has no faith in time. Not in its goodness or its evil, not in its ability to care about him or to even notice him in passing. Maybe time could give him back what he has lost, but it will not, he knows.

Let others worship and in the shadow of their faith he will find some protection from the overwhelming power of his own god who rolls over his life without pause or care. The only thing offered here, in this house of faith, was temporary escape from the Game and the hunter who stalks him at the perimeter.

Methos continues to sit patiently in pious stillness in the church pew. He has been there for the better part of the day staring up at the alter where a tortured young man looks down at him from his endless crucifixion.

_Don't worry, young Jesus,_ he wants to say. _This too shall pass. One day your religion will fall, as all the others have fallen. Your worshipers will pass away, first into myth and then into nothingness, and you will be allowed down from your cross. It's not mercy or justice or anything that prayer can either cause or deny. It just is. Your tortures may feel endless now, but all things pass eventually._

If Darius had been the priest here, he would have said it aloud and Darius would have shushed him.

_Come now, old friend,_ he would have said. _It doesn't matter that one day it will be gone, for it is here right now and it will always have been here right now in this moment of time. It is enough._

_It isn't enough,_ he wants to argue back. _You are gone and I am left._

_Yes, you are left._

The head hunter who had been stalking him has finally given up and gone on his way and maybe it is time for Methos to be on his way, too, before the live priest comes back again.

Nothing is solved but a momentary escape from the Game, and after his long day of contemplation he still knows that his god is time itself, and that he will never ever worship it.


	35. Ch 35: xover with Person of Interest

Disclaimer: I do not own either Highlander or Person of Interest.

A/N: I had to fudge the time line a bit to make the characters match up, but hopefully it doesn't actually matter that much. Just assume the Highlander series happens a few years later than it's set in canon.

* * *

><p><strong>Definitely Not a Damsel<strong>

* * *

><p>*Beep*<p>

The computer announced a new number.

It had never before happened while Reese was at the old library without Finch. It offered a temptation he didn't even try to resist. He sat in Finch's chair and started doing the research.

Finch would probably have to duplicate the work himself, but Reese wanted to see how much he could get before the other man returned. The faulty information on the super had just been embarrassing.

An hour passed and he had a dossier on an antique dealer with quite the shady past, but no Finch to show it to. He assumed that Finch got the number alerts sent to his phone. He knew that Finch had access to most of his systems via his phone. Was he doing the research from somewhere else?

Why hadn't he called Reese yet?

"What are you doing, Mr. Reese?" Finch's voice broke in suddenly. He hadn't heard the man arrive, but…

"Where have you been, Finch?"

Raised eyebrows. "I have been out." Finch made his stiff way to the computer and looked over the pages that were still up on the screen.

"We got another number." Which was an obvious thing to say, but Reese wanted to highlight the fact that there was someone's life waiting for Finch to get back from where he had been.

"Yes, I know. Russell Nash. The situation is already dealt with."

And okay, yes, Finch was a league unto himself, but that was just ludicrous. "It's been two hours and you not figured out what Nash was up to and how to stop it? When the police couldn't even prove his killing spree?"

"No, I called Mr. Nash and let him know that his number had come up. Again."

"You're protecting him?" He stalked towards Finch, he wanted to get right up into his face and it was annoying as hell that Finch had sat down. He was sure that Finch noticed him looming over him, but he sure didn't act like it.

"He was one of my options for your position, Mr. Reese. He wasn't interested. He gets enough people going after him without having to look for more. He's retired. So I merely let him know when someone has him in their sights and he has threatened me with severe harm if I ever try to take responsibility for any harm that comes to him by my inaction. You can call him if you like, Mr. Reese, but I assure you, he's neither a bad guy nor interested in being saved."


	36. Ch 36: Lust and Bloodlust

Disclaimer: I do not own the Highlander universe or characters, much to my own chagrin.

A/N: Written in response to the prompt:  
>Highlander, MethosDuncan, they are the last two of their kind

* * *

><p><strong>Lust and Bloodlust<strong>

* * *

><p>The Gathering had happened a thousand years ago and Mac still dreamed of seeing Methos. He still saw the man's face out of the corner of his eye. He still heard his voice in crowds.<p>

He felt like the flying Dutchman, traveling around the globe searching for Methos and finding him nowhere.

He didn't even know what he would do if he found him again somehow, somewhere. He wasn't sure if he would kiss him or kill him, but he knew that he would keep him forever.

When the Gathering had finally happened, when the call to fight was too strong to ignore, and immortals from around the world had been drawn to the one place and time, they had fought back to back.

The dry dirt beneath their feet had been churned to mud with the blood of the fallen, and Quickenings had created a steady haze of fog and static in the air. Half a thousand immortals had become a hundred immortals.

A hundred immortals had become a dozen.

And finally a dozen immortals had become two.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.

MacLeod had hoped that back-to-back, he and Methos would never see each other, never challenge the other no matter how insane with bloodlust the Gathering made them. And, he had thought, that back-to-back neither would need to see when the other was finally cut down.

He had been right about the first part. But for the second…

What they hadn't considered what it would mean to fight as shield mates do. At least, Mac thought, he hadn't thought of it. Back to back they guarded each other. No other immortal on the field of battle had a shield mate to protect them. It made sense that they would win. They alone who had safety at their backs.

That they would be the last two immortals in a mud pit of blood and bodies, and the Gathering still calling to them. To fight. To kill.

He leaned back against Methos, and Methos leaned back against him.

Mac was so very tired and yet his nerved jangled with the desire to attack, to kill. To take this one last quickening and be complete.

He could practically taste Methos' quickening.

He hungered for it.

He couldn't help the laugh that racked his body.

"I could use a joke about now, Mac." Methos spoke without moving from where he was resting his back against Mac's.

"I was thinking about how I've wanted you since the first day I saw you. But not like this. I never wanted to want you like this."

Methos' laughter was silent but Mac could feel it. Most immortals reveled in black humor. How else could they stay sane?

They stood their in silence in the field.

Mac thought about his choices here. He would never forgive himself if he killed Methos. Not now, not like this. He would find his own death soon enough afterwards if he did it. But Methos: Methos said he hadn't felt guilt since the eleventh century. No matter how many protestations of love the old man had given to Mac, no matter how much Mac believed them, he knew that Methos would be able to survive killing him in a way that Mac wouldn't be able to survive killing Methos.

But he also knew that Methos wouldn't do it. Not of his own volition. So the question became, did Mac have the control to do to Methos was Connor had done to him so long ago? Could Mac, in the heat of this final Gathering, set himself up to die?

"I can hear you thinking, you know."

"Hmm?" Mac thought that maybe Methos was thinking the same thing. It might be the most ludicrous battle to the death ever, with both sides trying to die despite an overwhelming desire to kill.

"You think we can choose who lives and who dies. That one of us could pull that final blow and allow the other to win."

"No, I wasn't." The lie was automatic. He couldn't help it.

Methos laughed his quiet laugh again.

"Oh Mac, that was awful."

"Hmph."

And then Methos was serious again. "But we can't. I've tried before, when I left the horsemen. I tried dying in Challenges. I tried again and again, but part of being a good fighter is training your body to move faster than your mind. Any fight between us will be real."

It rang true. He wondered if Methos was trying to convince him to lay down his sword. Then he wondered why he hadn't thought of that before. Just lay it down and look Methos in the face one last time. The force of the Gathering wouldn't let him not behead him.

If this was the old man's manipulation, then it worked.

Mac had to peel his fingers off his sword one by one, but it finally fell to the ground. He rolled to one side so that they stood side to side and his back was to his own sword. He looked at Methos and Methos looked back.

He could see his death in those eyes. As much as he desired this fight and this kill, he could forsake it long enough to force Methos to win it.

"You boy scout. You utterly charmingly idiotic, suicidal boy scout. Do you want to know what else I learned from being Death?"

"What's that?" Mac locked his legs to prevent himself from flinging himself at his sword.

Methos smiled. "How to run from my own bloodlust."

And he took off running.


	37. Ch 37: Going to the Gathering

Disclaimer: I don't own the Highlander universe or characters.

A/N: This was written for mandassina who requested a prequel to my previous drabble "Getting On With It". I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

><p><strong>Going to the Gathering<strong>

* * *

><p>Methos was in class when he felt Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod die.<p>

The connection made by their shared quickening so many years before twisted inside of him as bits returned to him and other bits left forever. For an instant he could almost feel some other immortal at the other end of the connection, but then it was gone. Mac was gone. Methos closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment of grief but no more. Mac's death was hardly a surprise.

The Gathering was taking place only a couple of miles away and Methos was, as far as he knew, the last of the hold outs. He was the last immortal to maintain control of the bloodlust and prevent himself from going on a rampage against either mortals or other immortals. The last of the immortals to still hide himself in the role of a mortal, and a harmless mortal at that. It was difficult, certainly, but he thought he could have maintained control indefinitely if one of his few friends had been the one to win the Gathering.

None of them would, though.

Mac had been the last of his immortal friends to still be in The Game as of the morning news.

Now, there wasn't much point in holding out.

He would go to the Gathering Arena this afternoon, after class let out. There were only two presentations left to go.

None of the students had even noticed his brief loss of attention. As the Gathering madness increased, he'd arranged the class schedule to allow him to lecture as little as possible. The students were taking turns presenting and Methos had set a strict grading metric for himself so that he could maintain a fair grading practice despite raising levels of anger and frustration and violent desires.

"Hey everybody, before I start my presentation, it's my pleasure to announce that that sanctimonious prick MacLeod is finally a head shorter!" Robert was a jock and the class clown and he got the reaction from the students that he wanted: a mixture of awed approval and appalled disapproval at his statement.

"STOP." Robert could have had no way of predicting Methos' reaction. The command that froze the entire room of students was aimed as much at himself as at the students. He forced himself to release the throwing knife in his hand.

"Robert, leave the room. You'll present to one of the TAs at a later date."

"Come on, Professor, I was paying attention, I was just..." he gave Methos what he likely thought was a charming grin, "also watching the news scroll."

The idiot boy thought Methos was mad that he had been watching the news in class.

"Stop talking." Methos spoke very softly but his voice carried. "Right now."

Robert finally shut up. He must have seen something on Methos' face and finally realized that he'd gone a great deal too far.

He was just a stupid little college student who didn't even think about those men and women in the Arena as real people with friends and family to mourn them. He thought he knew MacLeod from the press conferences the man had given over the centuries. He thought he knew what cynicism was and thought that look down on idealists as being naïve somehow made him more grown up. He knew nothing about what it took to maintain ideals against the ongoing ravages of time.

MacLeod was a wonder. Had been a wonder.

Ever since Immortals and The Game had become public knowledge, philosophers and psychologists, historians and sociologists, had tried to understand the effects of immortality and repeated mortal combat on immortals. Some of them seemed to actually understand, but most of them didn't. And this idiot boy had never even made the attempt.

It didn't mean he deserved to die.

"Angela," he addressed one of his TAs, "escort Robert out and schedule a time later in the week to hear his presentation."

"Yes, sir." Angela was smart and self-aware. She knew something was dangerously wrong.

The rest of the class were still mostly frozen in shock. He hoped they stayed that way for at least a few more minutes, to allow him to get his control back.

Yes, Mac was dead. Amanda and Lee and Seraph and Akbar and Jain were all dead, too. There was no reason, anymore, to not go to the Arena and fight, but he still had his students in front of him, and his job as a professor and his life as just a guy. He needed to maintain control for just a bit longer.

"Phone Service." He triggered the classroom's phone line without moving. "Call for 9-1-1 emergency."

"Professor, what's wrong?"

"What?"

"I don't understand."

The students babbled but Methos ignored them.

"This is Cathy at 9-1-1. What is the nature of your emergency?" She had a calm voice and sounded capable as a good emergency operator should.

"Hello, Cathy. I'm Professor Pierce Matthews. I need you to send an armed escort to my location to take me to the Gathering Arena."

"Sir, armed escorts of that nature were for armed and dangerous immortals who needed help getting to the Arena before they killed someone. They are not for academic purposes."

"I know that. I am telling you now, I am an armed immortal, I'm in the middle of teaching a session of undergraduate linguistics and I just had to stop myself from killing one of my students. I need an escort."

"An escort is on the way, they should be there in five minutes. Please stay on the line with me until they arrive."

"I'll keep the line open. I'm going to continue the class, but you should be able to hear what is happening."

"Sir, I should warn you that you will be charged with criminal counts of fraud if you are not actually immortal. And all known immortals are already at the Arena."

Methos ignored the warning. It hardly applied to him, after all.

"Okay, we only have one more presentation to get through. I'm sorry you have to present under these circumstances, but it's a useful experience anyway. So get to it."

"Sir…" Tanya could barely get her voice above a whisper.

Methos forced himself to sigh, relax, and sit back in his chair again. "Don't say anything celebratory about the deaths of my friends and we should be good. Proceed."

At least Tanya had had extensive notes. Her presentation consisted of her reading from them since she was distracted the entire time. In part by the armed guard who came rushing through the door half-way through.

He waived to Tanya to continue, but stood at their wary approach. He removed his jacket and handed it to the first man, allowing him to take possession of his sword for the time being. He handed over his gun and his knives to the next and allowed the guards to place themselves around him, half of them focusing inward, prepared to shoot him if he attacked anyone, the other half facing outward, prepared to repel any aggressive actions.

They would get him to the Arena and would return his bladed weapons at the entrance. If he lost control now, they would simply shoot him and take his body to the Arena. For all the deadly intent, it was reassuring to have a safety net in place for once.

"Okay class. Your reading for next week is listed on the syllabus and I will not be attending office hours tomorrow. I'll see you in class next week."

They likely doubted him, but he would be there. There was no one left in the world to whom he was willing to give his Quickening and there was no reason anymore to hold back in fighting.

He had lived, and everything that didn't kill him had made him stronger, and now it was another day and time to fight.

He nodded at his guards. "Please take me to the Gathering."


	38. Ch 38: What do you fear?

Disclaimer: I don't own the Highlander universe, much to my dismay

A/N: This was written in response to a prompt: Author's choice, author's choice,  
><em>" But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,<em>  
><em>Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bold) brought in upon a platter,<em>  
><em>I am no prophet – here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,<em>  
><em>And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker,<em>  
><em>And in short I was afraid."<em> (TS Eliot)

* * *

><p><strong>What do you fear?<strong>

* * *

><p>He spent a lifetime or more searching for his lost brother, and in the search for their elder, the younger ones fell by the wayside.<p>

He spent a lifetime or more conquering kingdom after kingdom and making of himself a beacon that his lost brothers might find him. But none of them did.

He spent a lifetime or more in a monastery, searching for faith in a greater being, a being greater than he had been, than his brothers had been, than they had been as a foursome, riding across the land. He wept and fasted, he rent his clothes and screamed to the heavens and moaned at the pits of hell, and found no one to listen in either place.

His brothers were gone and he was alone.

He had had fame and power, family and followers. It had seemed infinite and yet it had flickered and gone out in a moment.

He was no prophet. He didn't see the world in the life of the animals as Silas did. He didn't see the future in the writings of the scholars as Methos did. He didn't see the spirits in the voices in his head as Caspian did.

He was no prophet but still he saw his own death coming ever closer. It was coming for him and he would have no company in that long dark ending.

He shivered in cold and fear at the thought of being ushered out of this world. He covered the fear in rage, wrapped himself in obsession. He was the end of the world, and if he would die, he would send the whole world to await him in the dark.

And maybe, if he sent so many into that black abyss, it might fill and no longer yawn before him as a darkness waiting for him to fall.

And maybe, if he had his brothers with him once more, they would shine so brightly that they would light the whole world on fire, chasing away every shadow, leaving nothing to fear.

Maybe, maybe something might someday be enough to stop the fear.

Even as he stalked the nights, armed and dangerous, Kronos shivered in fear.


	39. Ch 39: God of Blindness

Disclaimer: I don't own the Highlander universe or characters

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt: Highlander, Methos, Delusions of Grandeur

* * *

><p><strong>God of Blindness<strong>

* * *

><p>For a thousand years, Methos was a <em>God<em>.

He was _Death_.

The world all the people upon it bent to his will.

He was a force of nature, and with his brothers at his side, none could gainsay him. Everything he wanted, he got; everything he commanded, was done. He wore robes of blinding white and rode whether he desired and all the population whispered his name with fear and awe. Those who challenged him died bloody deaths along with all their family.

He had wealth and power and the very heavens bowed before him.

For a thousand years…

And then one day, Methos looked and saw not strength, but blindness.

Not grandeur, but shrunken pettiness. He had nothing that could not be taken by strength. He had everything he wanted only because he had restricted his desires so tightly that he only wanted what little he could take.

No friends or lovers, for they could not be forced to feel. No fields of wheat or herds of cattle because they could not be guaranteed through the dry seasons or the wet. No family other than his brothers for they could not be kept alive against the passage of time.

He looked around the encampment. The day before his eyes had passed over the tokens of gold and silver, and been pleased. This day he looked instead at the dirt and bloody mud and was disgusted.

"Come brother, what causes that look of distress? Tell me, and I shall kill it for you."

There was mockery in the offer as well as true support, for Kronos implied that Methos might not be able to kill his own target. Methos couldn't even manage to scowl back.

There was no target here to be killed for Methos' pleasure, and if there was, Kronos was no more able to slaughter it than Methos.

For the first time in a thousand years, Methos felt weak and helpless for while he could kill an army, destroy a civilization, such actions would only make the disgust that much worse.

He turned to his brother to voice his dismay but stopped short. Kronos looked over their camp with pleased pride. It was like taking pride in a heat mirage.

"I will go riding." Methos spoke abruptly.

He would go riding and he would not turn back. He wished he were able to unsee what he had seen, take back his delusions of grandeur, but there was nothing there and he could not. And the only thing worse, he thought, than living in that travesty of a camp, would be live there with his brothers when they thought it a palace.


	40. Ch 40: xover with XMen

Disclaimer: I don't own either the X-Men or Highlander universes

A/N: This was written in response to the prompt: _Highlander/X-Men, Methos + Xavier, the only person he's found whose mind he can't feel at all_

* * *

><p><strong>Peering Into the Depths<strong>

* * *

><p>"Scott, please drive us back to the school."<p>

"Is something wrong, Professor? Is the school alright?"

"No, no, everything is fine." He sent his old student a sense of calm. "I'd just like to get back to the school for tonight. We can drive back out in the morning."

Charles had meant to stay the night at the conference hotel rather than return to the school, but that was before he'd seen Dr. Adam Pierson.

Charles had been part of a panel discussion, Societal versus Biological Understandings of the Word 'Mutant.' The discussion had gone well, a range of opinions voiced, good questions asked. Dr. Pierson had asked a good question regarding those mutants who pre-dated the word 'mutant.' Charles had never studied historical linguistics so he had ever so delicately scanned his co-panelist's mind in order to further understand the man's answer. And he had tried to do the same to Dr. Pierson.

Dr. Pierson was…

… very quiet …

… and a long ways down.

It felt like free fall before he jerked himself back.

Not all minds are made equal. Charles doesn't tell anyone this, though, since it's bound to give the wrong impression. He absolutely believes that all people should be _treated_ equally. Part of his belief is based on the idea that equal treatment is the best practical option rather than because it's based on people _being_ equal.

The other part is that while minds vary, they don't always vary in a way that makes them better or worse. They're just different. More or less common. More or less compatible with his own mind.

Minds are not equal. And thus, Charles can't help but interact with them differently.

When he was just making his way down a street, or attending a conference as the case may be, he tended to skim the thoughts that radiated outwards rather than bothering to look any deeper. The thoughts were a light pressure on his mind whether he paid attention to them or not.

Figuring out the meaning of the thoughts varied in difficulty from person to person.

Some thoughts were easy to know, slipping into Charles' own mind as easily as if they were his own thoughts.

Other thoughts were more difficult, like walking in sync with someone with an odd skip-step. He had to match his own mind to theirs to interpret the thoughts correctly.

Sometimes such tricks were fun, like making his mind match that of a laughing six-year-old, and sometimes it was deeply unpleasant, like twisting his mind to match that of a terrorist.

Fun or unpleasant, easy or difficult, Charles could read people's minds, he could see them.

Except for Dr. Adam Pierson.

Dr. Pierson's thoughts had not radiated out from him, nor even lay in easy reach of a surface scan. Instead, there was only silence. Not a blocked silence like Erik in his helmet, or a violent silence of Emma Frost attacking, or even a dead silence like he'd heard too many times, but the silence of waiting for a sound that might never come. Like shouting into a cave and hearing no echo. It was a neutral silence that didn't care about him one way or the other.

It was deeply unnerving.

"Professor? We're here." Scott interrupted his musings; he still looked worried. Charles was completely unsurprised to see Jean open his door for him, ready to interrogate them about their unexpected return.

"Ah, thank you. I'm going to go check on something with Cerebro. I'm sure Scott would be delighted to tell you all about the conference." Charles almost felt bad about throwing Scott to the wolves, so to speak, but nowhere near guilty enough to refrain.

He got to Cerebro and locked the door with everyone else on the other side.

With the headpiece in place, he reach back to the conference center.

When he needs something more than just surface thoughts, Charles approaches people by the core of their being. Each person has that single shining point that is their self. It is these points which Cerebro helps him reach. Sometimes a person's self is hidden by a layer of shadow. Mostly undercover agents or really dedicated method actors. Generally, he can delve through the layers with a bit of effort, although there have been a few people he had needed Cerebro to access.

Knowing that central point of self allowed Charles to know the person without the distraction of thoughts or even memories. He _knew_ them, even if he didn't necessarily know their histories.

Reaching out to the conference center hotel, a thousand people lit up to his senses. He shuffled through them rapidly. There were staff and students, volunteers and presenters. None of them were Dr. Pierson.

He pulled back and reshuffled through them, slower this time. Rather than just looking at who they were, he looked at their thoughts this time too.

Dr. Natarajan was speaking to Dr. Pierson in the hotel restaurant.

They were speaking Hindi, but Charles could have understood if he needed to, but instead he used Dr. Natarajan as a focal point to attempt to find Dr. Pierson. Because Dr. Pierson wasn't there. His self didn't shine to Charles' senses, instead there was a faint shimmer that was almost like a heat mirage, there and not there. And then, with a twist of his mind, Charles found it, found an opening in the world. It was the deep well that Charles had almost fallen down during the session.

It was very deep and very shadowed. It went down deeper than Charles could sense, even with Cerebro's assistance. There was a self down there, Charles knew. There had to be that shining center of being. But it was very far down in the dark depths, too far for Charles to know it existed except for how it must surely exist.

Charles peered into those depths as far as he could, but saw only shadowy depths.

There was the temptation, oh the temptation, to let go of his anchor and allow himself to sink ever deeper, for surely if he went just that tiniest bit deeper he would see something, he would see the light at the bottom. Instead, he pulled himself back into his own body and powered down Cerebro.

Tomorrow morning he would go back to the conference and see if he couldn't approach Dr. Pierson.

Charles had never felt so like a mutant before, so dependent upon his powers, as in this moment when they failed him. If he wanted to know more about Dr. Pierson, Charles would have to get to know him the human way, by speech and voice and personal appearance. Charles was a mutant, yes, but he was also a human being. If he couldn't know Dr. Pierson the mutant way, then he would meet Dr. Pierson the human way. Because if there was one thing his mutant powers had told him, it was that Dr. Pierson was something special and worth knowing.


End file.
